


beloved black sheep, worship here

by hegemonwings



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Angst with a happy ending (sort of), Body Image, F/F, Knight/Liege, Mild Sexual Content, Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Spoilers for Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 11:01:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21391066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hegemonwings/pseuds/hegemonwings
Summary: When Edelgard cannot stand her loneliness any longer, she turns to her knight.
Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 5
Kudos: 46





	beloved black sheep, worship here

What makes a woman betray her values?

Ingrid runs the palm of her hand up Edelgard’s clothed arm, tracing the incline of the Emperor’s musculature. Each second Ingrid’s touch lingers draws a shiver out of Edelgard; her sensitivity to adoration makes her skin run red hot, even through her night clothes. When Ingrid reaches the side of her neck, an intense, longing, exhale escapes her that nearly shatters Ingrid’s fragile reason, an urge running through her that longs to run free, an urge that wants to pull her forward onto and into Edelgard, but -

But.

“Stop,” Edelgard says.

Ingrid’s hand freezes. She does not remove her hand. There was no command to remove her hand.

This is the ritual between them, now. Edelgard’s fantasy and Ingrid’s duty. 

When Professor Byleth disappeared all those years ago, Ingrid had been standing on the edge of a chasm in her life. On one hand - her kingdom, her duty, her remaining friends, her _ family _...and on the other was a promise: a promise for a world beyond the nobility class that had destroyed so many lives at home and at Duscur. A promise for Ingrid, personally, that spoke of an end to the rules that bound her to a man and a duty she secretly loathed - a promise for a set of black armor to encapsulate her, holding her, keeping her secure. What had started as a simple desire to learn lancework from Byleth had blossomed into a fascinating fixation on the girl with white hair that had promised her a life beyond this. 

To say it was a hard decision would’ve been an understatement. But whatever tiny, selfish part of Ingrid that still lived in her hardened heart had jumped, and she had no choice but to follow. 

Ingrid feels a gulp pass underneath her grasp, Edelgard shifting on the bed. “Continue,” comes the command. Edelgard’s eye are shut tight. She does not look at Ingrid. She will not look or acknowledge Ingrid isn’t Byleth until later, after their ritual, when Edelgard sheepishly apologizes to her.

The tip of Ingrid’s thumb cautiously and gently finds its way onto the far peninsula of Edelgard’s slightly red lips, the digit tracing the seal of her mouth with a gentle reverence. Ingrid takes Edelgard’s permissiveness in allowing this as an unspoken command to continue, and steps forward to place a knee on the bed, between Edelgard’s spread legs. She lurches forward, stretching over Edelgard, using her free palm as support. 

Edelgard’s mouth silently forms the words ‘Professor’, and Ingrid takes the chance to slip two of her fingers into Edelgard’s mouth while her supporting hand moves to a thigh that she gently squeezes. Every movement of Ingrid’s is done with the care of an artist pouring over a canvas painting - she must be attentive enough to maintain her lady’s pet illusion without fail. No touching of bare skin below the neck, no harsh gripping, no clothes would be removed without express permission. These were all Edelgard’s rules, and Ingrid was glad for them - their initial encounter had been confusing for both of them. Besides, if there was anything Ingrid understood, it was devotion to a lord; following Edelgard’s harsh, whispered orders was comforting to her. It made sense. Why _ would _ she hesitate to please another woman? It seemed a boring and stupid taboo in the face of everything else she’d done so far. 

Edelgard’s huffy sigh of contentment draws Ingrid out of her reverie. She pulls her fingers away from El’s mouth and waits, as patient as a practitioner in church. 

“Continue,” comes the word from on high, and Ingrid obeys. Her hands move quickly, dismantling Edelgard’s garters and small clothes just enough that she can slip two fingers inside her Emperor. Ingrid feels a familiar embarrassment crawl onto her face at how easily she’s allowed inside, her probing touches reaching deep. Edelgard groans and rocks against her for dear life, tiny electrical currents of powerful need shivering down her skin. One of Edelgard’s gloved hands covers her face like a mask, and the other finds purchase in the sheets of the bed, gripping it for dear life. 

“Byleth,” comes a sweet sigh, and Ingrid feels Edelgard orgasm around her touch for the first time that night, her thighs clenching around Ingrid’s wrist in a lover’s embrace. 

Ingrid continues to attend to her through several more of Edelgard’s finishes, a task that requires a degree of saintly patience as Edelgard calls for the occasional brief moment of mercy before growing frustrated with her own demands. This starting and stopping, this falling to self-loathing being wiped out by need; Ingrid stands by her through it all, lovingly delivering her any high she wishes before leaving her to recover her own senses. 

“Stop. Stop.” At the end of it all, her orders and breathing comes in gasps. “Leave me for awhile.” 

Ingrid says nothing to her, but allows herself to stare for awhile at the sheer mess she’s made, a bit of perverse pride filling her chest with strange warmth. Making her liege forget her troubles for a while was perhaps the most immediately useful thing she could do, in these years of cold war.

After a moment, Ingrid bows and excuses herself silently to the abulutions chamber connected to the bedroom. She goes to a basin and stares at the connected mirror, reading her own expression in the fading evening light of a nearby window as she washes.

Not too long ago she’d been the picture of both womanly grace and knighthood, pristine and proper in her place in the world. Now, she stood older, all of her naïvety replaced with the hard lines her face had slowly settled into. Two dully healed scars ran across a cheek and the bridge of her nose, joining hands beneath one of her ears. All hints of her feminine youth had been shaped into something in-between both the traditional sexes, stopped halfway between soft and hard. 

A wave of intense emotion rides up her chest, and she chokes back a sob. The consequences of her actions she could live with, the pursuit of a life of justice she could live with - but she could not shake a feeling of self-loathing, something that made her feel profane. Profane for turning away from her homeland, unholy for turning away a life that would’ve been so much easier. She could’ve lived without question, moving forward in the shadow of her father and the Church of Seiros her entire life, and it would’ve undoubtedly been easier. It would’ve been so much easier.

_ But it wouldn’t have been right _ , that tiny core part of her says. _ It wouldn’t have been true. _

She spends a good deal longer in the bath chamber than she intended, emerging later with the hope that her distress hadn’t been audible to Edelgard - but the tiny woman is curled up into a ball on her bed, knees nearly up to her chest, arms wrapped around a pillow. Her form gently rises and falls with the shallow breathing of her rest, though she occasionally shivers in the cold air of the darkening bedroom.

“Your Majesty,” Ingrid says, softly, as she approaches her. “Please cover yourself so you don’t catch cold…”

Edelgard merely mumbles incoherently in response. With a short sigh, Ingrid draws the blanket and sheet over Edelgard, tucking the most powerful woman in the world into bed. When she moves to leave, Ingrid freezes as she realizes El’s still-gloved hand is wrapped around her wrist.

“Ingrid.” The authoritative tone in her voice nearly makes Ingrid’s back straighten on reflex. “Thank you. And...I’m sorry.” 

“It...It’s fine, your Majesty.”

“It’s not,” she retorts through a haze of tired fog. “Doing this is wretched work.”

Ingrid doesn’t know how to respond, so she merely remains quiet and stares at the tile of the floor. She dares not risk betraying her own emotions even when she feels Edelgard’s hand leave her wrist and gently caress her face. The touch shocks her less than the next whispered words out of the Emperor’s mouth, though:

“You are quite handsome, my knight.” 

Ingrid’s quiet gasp is lost on the already fading consciousness of Edelgard. Even after the touch is withdrawn and sleep settles back over Edelgard, Ingrid remains kneeling next to her bed, lost in thought. 

What makes a woman betray her values? In the darkness of a bedroom on the highest level of Garreg Mach, Ingrid realizes her answer.

  
  
  



End file.
